


Packing

by Contraband



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, I cried from realizing how good that is y'all, Mother-Son Relationship, They deserved it, i'm so thankful Krolia and Keith had a two-year opportunity to bond and get to know each other, season 6, voltron season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 06:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14949023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Contraband/pseuds/Contraband
Summary: Just a quick look at Krolia's thoughts as she is loading up Keith's things (and Shiro's body) when everyone's packing up the lions before blowing up the Castle. Sheith implied. A kind of character study exploring her impression of what's happened concerning Keith and Shiro.





	Packing

In the rush of packing everything up, none of them had really had time to stop and talk about what was happening. Every moment mattered, and getting packed up for their newly nomadic life was paramount. Anything that didn't need to go with them didn't.

  
Krolia didn't have to worry about that very much. All of her belongings were on her person. It was really just the clothes and equipment she had on when she and Keith had first been stranded together. The only additions to her effects were a new, somewhat scrappy stone knife that she and Keith had made by firelight over a period of several evenings, and a shoddy necklace beaded with teeth and claws from some of the natural wildlife that shared their home on the whale's back.

Everything else was in her mind, easily taken anywhere.

  
The others, Keith's friends, had more to consider when packing. She had noticed, when rushing past Pidge's open door, that the youngest of Team Voltron was having a particularly difficult time prioritizing. Krolia paused briefly in the doorway, wondering if she could be of assistance.

  
When Pidge noticed her standing there, the human just blushed a little and shrugged, her arms wide. "I have no idea what I'm gonna do with more than half of this. But I'll make it work."

  
That seemed to be the general attitude, both about the material possessions everyone was rushing to save, and about the more nebulous emotional baggage they all knew would have to be unpacked eventually.

  
This was heavy on Krolia's mind as, at last, they all began to board the lions. Krolia had what little Keith called his own in a satchel over one shoulder. The wolf, Glimmer, padded at her heels loyally. They moved slowly because Krolia was ushering ahead of her the most important thing to Keith of all: Shiro's still body.

  
If it could be called Shiro's at all. Krolia looked pensively at those closed eyes and bruised face as she pushed him along. In the time she and Keith had shared alone together, she had heard quite a bit about everyone on the team. It had filled her with a wonderful warmth she hadn't felt since her time on Earth, to hear her son open up. He smiled and laughed and shared like every word he could say to her was healing him. She had wanted so much to know who her son had grown up to be, and it was good to watch how glad he was for the opportunity to show her.

  
But in all the relaxed conversations they had shared, Krolia had quickly picked up on a tension in her son's voice when he spoke about Shiro. It wasn't necessarily that there was something wrong between them. No, it was more concern for him, than about him.

  
Keith spoke highly of all his friends -- even Lance, who he had initially described as an antagonistic, pesky sort of person. They had eventually found a kinship all the same. But with Shiro, it had been there from the start, and it ran deeply.

  
Now that things had unfolded as they had, and everyone realized this Shiro, the one that had hurt her son so much, and nearly been the death of him, was a clone . . . she understood why Keith had always had that underlying worry in his voice. Before this battle, Keith hadn't known what was wrong, only that something was, and it had torn him up.

  
It must be good, in a way, to have the closure. To know that the Shiro he knew wasn't the one that had done these things. And yet, Krolia couldn't begin to guess what it would look like in the coming days, weeks, years . . . Keith would have a lot of healing to do.

  
It was one reason she was so determined not to be separated from him again. They had so much still to learn about each other, and she never wanted to have a life without him in it again.

  
Krolia settled the pod out of the way in the bay of the lion and rested a hand gently against the glass over the clone's heart. "I don't know who you will be when you wake," she said quietly. At her side, Glimmer whined and nudged her thigh.

  
"But I hope you will find a peace and freedom to move forward, now that your tie to that witch is cut."

  
No matter what happened, Krolia would be there for her son. And if Keith wasn't ready to give up on this clone body, even after it had housed such a terrible violence, than neither would she. He was too important a piece of who Keith was to give up so easily.

  
She closed her eyes and allowed herself, just for a brief moment, to remember the fierce loyalty that had compelled her not to give up so many years ago on Earth. You didn't let the ones you loved be lost. You fought until there was no chance at all. It was a value she was proud her son carried too, whatever internal anger she might hold towards anyone that had caused Keith pain.


End file.
